Salt and Faith
by The Abbot of Beregost
Summary: A little story about doubt, faith, and duty set just before the Battle of New Caprica, featuring Gunny Sims and Racetrack.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Just before the Battle of New Caprica.

Gunny Sims knelt before the regimental shrine, erected in a storage room off of the briefing hall that had seen the death of so many good marines on the opening day of the war. Inside were the regiment's most prized possessions, symbols of their history. A sabre, their former CO's, hung directly over the entryway. A Colonial flag to the right, a Marine Corps flag to the left, and straight ahead the Foxtrot Company battle standard. It was ragged, depicting a faded Angel of Death advancing across sword blades, sword and shield in hand as its feet bled. Its robes had faded from dark green to a grey, and the stitching was a little ragged on the helmet it bore, covering the face. There were bullet holes, cuts, from where it had been borne into battle, or where good men had died defending it. Along the walls hung the dog tags of every Marine killed in action. In front of the battle standard was a small table overflowing with tiny carved idols. In the center of it was a magnificent Corinthian helm, horsehair crest striped blue and white. The heart of the Three Hundred Fifty Second Regiment of Colonial Marines was that room.

He didn't know what he was doing there, but Sims knelt none the less, staring at the empty eyes of that bronze helmet. It was a tribute to Ares, to the spirit of the Corps, to the sigil of Death on their battle standard. It filled him with pride, yes. But that pride wasn't clearing away the doubt fast enough. He shifted a bit, Kevlar creaking. He was in full battle rattle, shotgun slung and helmet under one arm.

"This is a suicide mission," he murmured to himself quietly.

The plan was halfassed. At best, the plan was a cocked up and risky procedure that would cost the Fleet one battlestar and thousands of good men. He was ready to die. He should have a hundred dozen times already. His men, though... his men deserved to live.

"Better to have both battlestars. All or nothing."

This was throwing away men, he thought. Men who had pride, the will to fight. Oh, they would fight to the last man. Every one of the fallen would be heroes, like those that came before them. But it was so…he struggled for words. The plan was too risky, too dicey. They needed more support, they needed the Pegasus. Something. He didn't know, he didn't like the odds, but he was going to try. A soft voice pulled at his thoughts.

"Penny for your thoughts, Gunny?"

Gunny Sims stood, turned around. Racetrack was in her flight suit, a copy of the Scriptures under her arm. He saluted her briskly, tried to come to terms with his feelings.

"Little worried is all. Worried about the plan. It's riskier than I'd like. "

"Your men."

"Yeah."

"Your soul."

"Not so much."

"I never did take you as the religious type, Gunny."

"I'm not."

"Then why are you in a shrine, Craig?"

He caught himself. Racetrack never used his first name. Not once- not after retrieving him from Kobol, not when they were trapped between two battlestars in an unarmed Raptor, not when they assaulted Caprica.

"I don't know. Why are you here?"

She stared at him brown eyes glowing with some internal fire. Her voice was joking, but her face was grim.

"Came looking for you. I'm doing something on the flight deck."

He cocked a heavily scarred eyebrow at her.

"The Line."

"Oh."

The Salt Line Ceremony was not a tradition that generally bore thinking of. It was based on an event from an ancient last stand. Poor precedent. None the less, Racetrack stared at Gunny Sims. She walked past the Gunny and placed the Scriptures atop the small table, balancing them as best she could.

"Craig."

She took a step closer to him, placing both hands on the sides of his head and pulling down until she placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. He stood there in amazed silence, trying not to let his jaw drop.

"Come with me. I'd like to have you at my side when I do this."

In his mind, he knew. He knew that, all along, while he had been enamored with Callie, dating Jean, blind all along, she had been waiting for him. She had ferried him into battle, been screaming and cursing as she fought with him on her mind. In that one kiss, she had distilled all her patience, her passion. He reached out a gloved hand, took hers.

"I never thought you were the religious type, either," he said lamely as they left the shrine.

"No, Gunny. But religion and faith are two very different things."

**A/N:** It's not great, but I had to write it. Hope you enjoyed. Also, things like 'Corinthian helmet' and 'colours' both have articles on wikipedia, if you know not what they are. I know, very calm for Racetrack…but the Salt Line Ceremony took me right off guard.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **A continuation. Yeah, I'm surprised too.

Gunnery Sergeant Craig Sims stared up at Racetrack as she stood on the Raptor wing, standing on his side of the salt line. Helo stood below her, trying to organise everything.

"All right, people, you know how this works: Pegasus crew o­n the port side of the line, Galactica on the right."

He bowed his head as she read, staring out across the faces of deckhands, Marines, enlisted and noncommissioned, Pegasus and Galactica.

"Their enemies will divide them. Their colonies broken in the fiery chasm of space. Their shining days renounced by a multitude of dark sacrifices. Yet still they will remain always together."

A terse moment, and then the murmured response from everybody: "Always together."

Gunny Sims smeared the salt line aside, extended a gloved hand to the Pegasus marine across from him. A hand is stuck out to him, and another, and another. He shakes them all with solemnity. He gave it five minutes before stepping to the edge of the crowd.

"Three five two! Two Two One! All Marine elements, on me!" he yells. In moments, he is in the center of a sea of black.

"Everyone knows what they need to do?"

"Yessir!" they chorus.

"Alright. Well, men, it's been an honour to live and work with you these past few years. I've trained some of you, fought with most of you. You're like my brothers, older, younger…yes, even a few sisters, private, don't bunch your panties. But right now, we're the older brothers, and our younger brothers and sisters are in trouble. They've been stomped on by the toasters, and we're they're only way out. We've got to get down there, and hold off the tin cans while everyone gets on their rides out. Fight hard, fight smart. Live forever, marines."

There was a thunderous 'HOOAH'. Gunny Sims nodded to himself as they boarded the assault Raptors, loaded for bear. Cannon and rockets were affixed to the Raptors ferrying a company of marines to the surface. It was going to be a hell of a fight. A light hand fell on his shoulder form behind. Gunny turned, saw the gleaming eyes of Racetrack.

"Always together, Gunny."

"Always together, Racetrack."

They embraced, holding each other tightly as armored men and flightsuited women streamed around them. The other soldiers and pilots ignored them, or smiled at something long overdue. The pair boarded their Raptor, Gunny Sims sitting close to the front of the craft. He smirked to himself.

"What's on your mind, Gunny?" Racetrack called back to him.

"Just thinking, you've always been with us. Pegasus, Kobol, Caprica. Every time we needed you, you've been there."

"I did my best, Gunny. Alright, we're off."

The Marines felt the tug of the Raptor as it was pulled onto a launchpad. Adrenaline flowed into their blood, hearts beating like the war drums of their ancestors.

"Couldn't have asked for more, Margaret."

A/N: Another chapter coming at some point. Really.


	3. Chapter 3

Gunny Sims rested his head against the battered bulkhead of the liner.

"How's he doing, Tommy?"

"Well enough. I think he'll live. That Quik-Clot stuff is a miracle in a can."

"Y'hear that, troop?"

"Yessir. Felt like salt in the wounds, sir."

"Well, it stopped the bleeding, private."

The glum marine, shot in both legs, continued to mope as he lay on the floor of one of the civilian ships.

"Ah, quit complaining. I got three caps in one leg, and I'm still running you all into the ground, aren't I?"

"Yessir."

"Atta boy."

Sims removed his helmet, leaned his head back. He closed his eyes, remembering the battle back on New Caprica. Calling in a 'shake and bake' fire mission on the power plant. Clearing aside Centurion resistance with help from the Resistance. The smell of cordite and white phosphorus and human blood. The sound of a chrome job going offline, the screams of the wounded, the calm of Racetrack's voice as she alternately pounded their target with high explosives and white phosphorus. He could hear the tension in her voice, something he wasn't used to. Hearing her curse as she pounded cannon fire and missiles into mobs of centurions cutting down every human they saw. The screams of a skin job as she burnt alive. Dragging one of his men to cover, gutshot. Leaving a dozen more behind, sacrificed for the freedom of others.

_I can't believe I made it through that_, he thought to himself. His vest had stopped a pair of rounds, inexplicably. It had caught plenty of shrapnel as well, but not so much as his skin had. He had led his black-clad men on an assault on the prison, blowing a hole in with Viper support. He had seen the cages, the torture rooms. He had quietly knifed a traitor. It seemed like another lifetime ago, a blur of motion that hardly seemed real. But it was.

"Where's Racetrack?"

"Sir?"

"Jannos, can you raise her?"

Jannos sat up, shuffled over.

"The frak's on the go, Gunny?"

"Get me Racetrack, now."

"What?"

"Not understand the word, Ted?"

"Alright…Racetrack, this is Tango Two Niner, over."

"Tango Two Niner, this is Racetrack, over."

"Tango Two Niner Actual wants a word."

"Put him on."

There's relief in her voice. It innervates Sims. It's like a fresh drink of water after a long march.

"Tango Two Niner actual. Y'alright, Racetrack?"

"Fine. You alright?"

"A bit banged up, nothing out of the ordinary."

"Two Niner, every other time I've seen you, you've had holes in you."

"That's unfair, Racetrack. Seriously, nothing outside a little shrapnel. Was wondering, though, you have any idea if you can ferry one of my guys to the sickbay as soon as we get back? He's hurting pretty bad."

"Can I pick him up now?"

"Ask the skipper of the Chiron. Be appreciated, though."

"Wilco, Tango Two Niner. Out."

Sims grinned at the young private.

"See, you're now a priority. You'll be on Galactica in a half hour."

Sims wasn't smiling because his troop was getting treatment, though that helped. He was smiling because it wasn't Racetrack he had watched get knocked out of the air. Racetrack was okay, and she had given him a certain strength. He didn't know how to explain it. He had always been indifferent towards her- sure, card games and plenty of time spent together had left them close, but there was always a gap between them. Now, it felt like that had evaporated. Sims thought about it.

Racetrack was always the last to see them before a mission, first to see them when they got back. She got them there, rescued their sorry asses. She was often in as much danger, with them so often that she may as well have been a marine. But how, he wondered, had she developed those kinds of feelings for him? He didn't know. He didn't want to know. He had lost a lot of good men over the years, didn't want to feel the hurt that came with losing another brother of battle or sister of war. But he felt bonded to her in a way he couldn't explain since the Salt Line ceremony and the incident in the shrine. He didn't know what to do.

So, when the Raptor landed aboard the Chiron, he was the one who bore the young private to it. It was Gunny Sims who loaded him aboard, reassured him, and then turned to Racetrack. She looked up at him questioningly, and he put one bloodstained, gloved hand on the back of her head and held her a moment. He couldn't have done anything else.

"You were right."

"Oh?"

"You were right. We came through it. I lost a lot of good men, but I had a little faith in everyone."

"You know I couldn't have left you behind, Gunny."

He nodded. Gunny Sergeant Craig Sims had felt something he hadn't felt with Cally. Not with Jean, either. She had prepared him for battle with a few words and a kiss on the forehead in a way no amount of berserkergang or speeches could have. Men have known its power since the beginning of time, and Sims felt it that day. They parted, Sims standing with his men and watching her go.

Faith and salt can go a long way on a battlefield.

**A/N: **'Shake and bake' is a contemporary term for Racetrack's missile strike. Thanks for reading, by the by.


End file.
